1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and program for processing a packet to transmit on a network in a host system including a plurality of network adaptors having multiple ports.
2. Description of the Related Art
A host computer may have multiple network cards to connect the system to a network. In current systems, the host would include a network device driver, which is a software program that executes to interface between the host operating system and the network cards. For hosts including multiple processors, the device driver would select one of the network cards to transmit a packet. The device driver executing in the host typically executes a load balancing algorithm to select a particular network card to transmit the packet. Such load balancing algorithms require a significant amount of host central processing unit (CPU) resources and cycles to execute. The burdens on the host CPU increase as the number of adaptors increase and as the number of transactions being handled by the device driver increases. The CPU resources required to perform load balancing operations can range from 5% to 50% of the CPU capacity, depending on the CPU processing speed, the number of adaptors, and amount of transmission activity.
Notwithstanding, there is a continued need in the art to improve the performance of the device driver and minimize device driver processing burdens on the host processor.